8150 



Notices of New Books. 



takings, we consulted Mr. Solomon Hodgson, bookseller and editor of 

 the £ Newcastle Chronicle,' as to the probability of its success, &c, 

 when lie warmly encouraged us to proceed. Such animals as I 

 knew, I drew from memory on the wood ; others which I did not 

 know were copied from Dr. Smellie's ' Abridgement of Buffon,' and 

 other naturalists, and also from the animals which were from time to 

 time exhibited in itinerant collections. Of these last I made sketches 

 first from memory, and then corrected and finished the drawings upon 

 the wood from a second examination of the different animals. I 

 began this business of cutting the blocks with the figure of the drome- 

 dary, on the 15th November, 1785, the day on which my father died. 

 I then proceeded in copying such figures as above named as I did 

 not hope to see alive. While I was busied in drawing and cutting 

 the figures of animals, and also in designing and engraving the 

 vignettes, Mr. Beilby, being of a bookish or reading turn, proposed, 

 in his evenings at home, to write or compile the descriptions. With 

 this I had little more to do than furnishing him, in many conversa- 

 tions and by written memoranda, with what I knew of animals, and 

 blotting out, in his manuscript, what was not (ruth. In this way we 

 proceeded till the book was published in 1790. The greater part of 

 these wood-cuts were drawn and engraved at night, after the day's 

 work of the shop was over. In these evenings I frequently had the 

 company of my friend the Rev. Richard Oliphant, who took great 

 pleasure in seeing me work, and who occasionally read to me the 

 sermons he had composed for the next Sunday. I was also often 

 attended, from a similar curiosity, by my friend the Rev. Thomas 

 Hornby, Lecturer at St. John's Church. He would not, like my 

 friend Oliphant, adjourn to a public-house and join in a tankard of 

 ale, but he had it sent for to my work-place. We frequently dis- 

 agreed in our opinions as to religious matters, he being, as I thought, 

 an intolerant high churchman ; but notwithstanding this, he was a 

 warm well-wisher and kind friend, and was besides of so charitable a 

 disposition that his purse was ever open to relieve distress, and he 

 would occasional!}' commission me to dispose of a guinea anony- 

 mously to persons in want." — P. 144. 



Such is the account of the first publishing speculation of Thomas 

 Bewick, — a speculation that proved eminently succesful : we now 

 come to his greatest and most important work, the * History of British 

 Birds :' he had long paid great attention to the subject; had learned 

 to distinguish the species from each other ; had closely observed 

 their colour and form ; had noticed and absolutely loathed the mon- 



